While in Europe the SBA is a guideline framework for EU policy, in Malta the SBA is actually an ACT (A law entrenched in our local legal framework)
The SB(M)A established another function for all business facing government entities over and above those than emanate from existing legislation. It added the function of business facilitation to other existing functions and seek to set up a number of ways in which this facilitation can be applied. The following is a list of proposed measures and an explanation of the rationale behind the main provisions to be included in the SB(M)A:
- Ensuring that all new proposed legislation has been adequately vetted to identify potential impact on enterprise and suitable measures taken to mitigate or remove any identified negative impacts especially on the smaller firms, as far as possible;
- Ensuring a more user-friendly legislation particularly where this requires compliance from businesses. This will be achieved by requiring a standstill period between publication and coming into force of such legislation together with focused information campaigns as well as the concurrent publication of an explanation in layman terms of the provisions of the law and the making available of User Guidelines to explain the what is required to ensure compliance;
- Setting up a dedicated consultative body to assist government in the formulation and implementation of enterprise policy and to discuss and propose measures addressing problem areas effecting businesses;
- Setting up of a Regulators Forum to advise government on formulation and review and implementation of regulatory policy;
- Requiring public sector entities whose services are primarily intended for businesses to undertake regular independent surveys of customer satisfaction in order to constantly improve their service delivery;
- Centralising online business information to provide a central repository of all information required by businesses on government provided services and government imposed requirements;
- Organisations representing businesses should promote the wider use of codes of ethics in SMEs to enhance client provider relations in the sector;